Yet another story
by ElnaKernor
Summary: Alone after the space Titanic, the Doctor tries to read a book... only to be interrupted when the TARDIS forces a landing in the 37th century with no explanation, except that there seems to be a few temporal anomalies out on the Stone Star, a galactic market place of renown.
1. TFT, part 1: The first word

_Alone after the space Titanic, the Doctor tries to read a book... only to be interrupted when the TARDIS forces a landing in the 37th century with no explanation, except that there seems to be a few temporal anomalies out on the Stone Star, a galactic market place of renown._

* * *

 **The finishing touch, part 1: The first word**

The Doctor wasn't particularly willing to read, as it was, but he had to do something, and reading was as good an occupation as any other. In fact, it was one he really enjoyed – especially when he actually took the time, not only to read, but to appreciate the words, the story, the life in a book.

Sure, he could flip through a hundred of pages in approximately one second and a half, and not miss a paragraph, which always confused whoever he was sitting next to at the time, but it just wasn't the same thing. If he really, really wanted to read something, if he had the time to read something, he'd take about, oh, three seconds for each page. Still much more than the average reading speed in the universe, but hey, he's a Time Lord, for Rassilon's sake.

The difference between speed-reading and normal reading, to him, was like the difference between reading a book for the first time, eager to get to the next page, to the next event, to what follows, and reading it again, this time enjoying the process of the story, sure, but also reading it deeply, taking in the nuances, what you couldn't notice the first time around – because you didn't already know the end, because you had no idea what was truly significant – except, this time you did.

He was alone, right now, and while he also enjoyed travelling alone, he had just saved a solar system earlier in the day, and he surmised he did deserve some downtime – something he didn't do much lately, for fear of remembering that he was alone.

He missed Martha already, Astrid was dead before she could even accept to come aboard, Donna had refused the offer some time ago already, and Rose... As for Mickey, he was with Rose in an alternate reality, and wasn't quite one of his biggest fan; Jack, even if the Doctor liked him a lot, Jack had his own life, and wasn't exactly the safest passenger to have aboard a time ship. Sarah Jane had definitely moved on, and he was happy for her.

There really wasn't anyone left to come with him.

There were a few others he missed too, some other people he had travelled with a long, long time ago. Most of them were probably dead, now – some had died because of him, of his tendency to take passengers, because he couldn't bear to travel alone. Others were done, not with him per se, but with the hectic life. They would welcome a visit, yes, but wouldn't come with him.

Not anymore.

A book, on the other hand...

A book would never refuse him.

Besides, if the book was good, he'd forget about his issues for a while.

Like the fact that he was completely, utterly alone.

Time to start looking for a book, or he'd die of brood. Was that possible, dying of brood? Like, you brood so much you end up dying? The Doctor didn't particularly want to fing out. So. A book.

His eyes roamed across the library, and he immediately rejected any sort of scientific publication. He wanted to escape, not to ponder on the probability of crossbreeding successfully a donkey and a tiger – not that he had such a book... or, he didn't think so, at least. Did he? And if he did, it would mean someone had actually thought about the subject, and now he was wondering what a donkey / tiger hybrid would be like. A vegan tiger with long ears?

Erm.

Might want to move on.

He wandered all the way to the fiction section, and stood there for a moment, unsure of what to take. He could read one of Dumas' stories again, he supposed, or maybe give a second chance to Hemingway's _Old Man and the Sea_ – he really wanted to read it, but last time he had gotten around to it, someone had made something explode, and after that he had kind of forgotten.

Except he wasn't quite feeling like it.

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, and violently spun around, his arm outstretched with pointy finger and everything.

He opened an eye, and squinted in that direction.

Uh.

Slightly-odd-and-mysterious section of the TARDIS' library. Well. At least, he should find some interesting books in there. Interesting, as in curious. Whether or not it'd be worth the curiosity was something he'd have to discover – once he had bought a book because everyone said it was the most unsettling thing of the era, had kept it in that section, for three centuries, then had read it during his eighth incarnation, and let me tell you, he had chucked the book into a black hole right after that; unsettling was a very mild adjective for that particular work of disturbing fiction.

His footsteps echoed weirdly as he walked through the shelves, searching for the book that'd get his attention this time. One of the reasons he didn't like being alone. When there are absolutely no other sounds than yours, everything seems so much louder, so much...

There. That one.

The Doctor remembered having bought the book many years ago, decades, even, centuries probably, in his own timeline, but he had never quite gotten to read it. Things had happened, and it had laid unopened on its shelf.

He turned the old, leatherbound volume upside down, peering at the "summary" that should be on the cover, yet wasn't. The book was smooth and free of any title, any author name, any indications at what was inside.

One of the reasons the Doctor had bought it to begin with.

Turning down the urge to just speedread through it first, to find out the big secret, he searched for a seat in some dark – well, not too dark, wouldn't want to damage his eyesight – oppressive corner of the library. Somewhere he wouldn't feel the constant reminder that he was alone in a ship that could house thousands.

Eventually he sat down, put on his glasses – brainy specs, please – and opened the book.

The moment his eyes fell on the first word, the TARDIS rumbled, whirled even. Started shaking.

The Doctor frowned, speechless. Apparently the universe was against him reading that book.

The lights started to flicker dangerously, and was it a hint of mauve he was seeing on that monitor? Not good, not good, not good! He shot up, let the book, open, on the armchair where he had been sitting before the TARDIS went crazy, and ran to the control room – had there been anyone else on board, he'd probably be babbling some half-assed reassurance and the beginning of a long-winged explanation that he was absolutely not certain of by now. Except he was alone.

When the Doctor was alone, he rarely started rambling, no matter the incarnation. There was no one to tell him to shut up, after all, so why would he bother? No one to remind him that he wasn't alo...

Not the moment.

He bustled into the main control room, and his eyes went wide.

"What? What?! WHAT?!"

Correction, please. He babbled less often when he was alone, but it didn't keep him from talking, occasionally. Or, as it was, from acting as if there was someone with him... until he remembered that there wasn't.

Anyway, yeah, even alone, this incarnation was still very vocal about his surprise.

Every light in the room was samba dancing between red and blue, instruments chirping away, and the screens were showing readings that made absolutely no sense. Like, the TARDIS had ended up in an alternate reality that didn't exist because it actually was the right dimension but still there was something off that...

The wild craziness suddenly stopped, and the readings changed. The Doctor eyed the screens distrustfully, as if the ship had been playing a trick on him, but still came closer to have a better look at the situation outside.

Outside, because they weren't in the time vortex anymore.

The TARDIS had landed herself, again, without a care as to what he thought of it. Sometimes he really wondered why he put up with her to begin with – honestly, he wasn't even that bad of a driver, though, yes, maybe he had never quite bothered to read the manual, and no, he had never paid any attention in class, but was it really his fault when his TARDIS decided that she knew better than he did where he wanted to go anyway? People always blamed him for the bumpy driving, but more often than not it was because the TARDIS was interfering, and yes, there were supposed to be be six drivers, not only one. Who cared if he did park a bit forcefully from time to time, hum?

Brainy specs still on, the Doctor squinted at the readings.

He had basically been thrown on the other side of the galaxy, which wasn't that much of a jump, considering. And to the thirty seventh century, for some reason. The Stone Star. Been a while since he last came here.

He briefly wondered why the TARDIS had seen it fit to transport him in this particular corner of space and time... until the TARDIS' doors opened themselves lightly, as if inviting him to walk out and find out for himself.

Suspicious. Very suspicious, all that.

So, yeah, the TARDIS hardly wanted anything to happen to him, but. But, the Doctor was more than aware that his ship had a very particular notion of what "safe" meant. And she also had a tendency to send him where and when he was needed, except that didn't always mean it was a safe place. Quite the contrary, in fact. Since people hardly needed him when they weren't in danger.

Nonetheless, the temperamental ship usually waited for him to try and get somewhere before sending him off course.

Not the case this time.

So, sorry if he was being suspicious, but everything here smelled a tad dubious. Like, something had gotten into his ship unbeknown to him, and was manipulating the TARDIS – it made him shudder, to think of a thing that might live inside the vortex, that wouldn't even flinch out there, outside of time and space, and that would have somehow gotten into his TARDIS. In fact, that sounded exactly like the beginning of a gallifreyan horror story for the time tots.

Ah, don't be stupid. It was more likely that, had something snuck in his ship, it had happened during his latest stop. No such a thing as a vortex monster that crawls out of reality and under children's beds to grab their leg...

Besides, it might be the TARDIS deciding he ought not to read that book, for all he knew.

Nothing pointed to an intruder coming intru-da-window.

Not that the TARDIS had actual windows – or, to be precise, windows you could enter through.

For a moment he wondered if, perhaps, he should better stay on board; even, leave right away, if the TARDIS allowed that.

The problem being, as always, that if the TARDIS had chosen to dump him here, of all places, she'd probably refuse to leave, not until he did what she had brought him here to do. Honestly, a ship that did whatever she wanted, that one. Next time a brunette girl tells him to take that model rather than this one, he wouldn't listen – though he had to admit he loved his TARDIS.

Didn't mean the whole set up wasn't completely suspiscious.

The Doctor might have slightly glared at the console, as he walked out of the console room, in search of his favorite coat, which he had, again, left... somewhere. There wasn't any real heat in that glare, of course.

He found his brown coat tucked under a shelf, where the remains of a project he had started, and never finished – he had had a good laugh with Leonardo da Vinci on that subject – were scattered. How it had ended up there, he wasn't totally sure, and as long as he was still able to get the coat back, he didn't really care.

The Doctor put it on, checked the inside of his pockets – which, believe me on that point, could take a while, with how they were bigger on the inside and everything – and decided that yes, he had everything he needed to go outside, despite a possibly hostile environment waiting for him on the other side of the TARDIS' door.

He still grabbed the detector thingie he had last been working on, just in case. Calibrated for time anomalies, this one. Because the first thing he had noticed, before the readings had stabilized, was that while the main timeline out there was perfectly normal, there were a few temporal anomalies all around the Stone Star, as if someone had gone and added threads of time in the temporal tissue that didn't belong there. Meaning, he could totally do with a temporal detector.

The Doctor was always unarmed, yes, but that didn't mean he ventured in the unknown without a few gadgets to even out the odds.

As he pushed the doors completely open, he absent-mindedly realized he still had no idea what the first word of that book was.


	2. TFT, part 2: Attention

_Okay, now I know what's so goof about writing DW fanfic: the random lack of attention of the Doctor._

* * *

 **The finishing touch, part 2: Attention**

The Doctor had parked the TARDIS – no, wait, the TARDIS had parked itself – on the high end asteroid of the Stone Star, in between a classy restaurant and a designer clothes store – that specialized in three-legged life forms. Meaning, the Time Lord just had to choose a direction, and he'd end up crossing path with the temporal anomalies that apparently just walked around, if he was to believe his handmade instrument of detection.

He squinted at the lively street, and turned back to check that the TARDIS' perception filter was still on. This might be the high end part of the galactic market, but it certainly didn't mean there weren't thieves around – sorry, business people.

The Stone Star was in fact a group of asteroids held together with artificial gravity, atmosphere, and what the people around here called a harmonial translator – as well as with a good number of metallic structures, because you're never too careful. It had become the biggest trading place in the galaxy in the early thirty-third century, gregorian calendar. The asteroids – seven in total – were vaguely disposed as a star. In the center, high end products. The six other asteroids were either poorer, or more specialized. Namely, the Snooty Stone in the middle, the Beggars' Stone where most of the employees lived as well as a few infortunates exiles, the Nerd and the Geek Stones joined at the hip, with a disturbing number of unexpected explosions happening there, the Interspacial Stone that was basically a drive-through, the Discount Stone for obvious reasons, and last but not least, the oh-so-suspicious Black Stone where things were exchanged and no one ever asked questions because it wasn't good for your health. The Doctor had to admit that he spent most of his various visits either on the Nerd and Geek Stones, or being run after around the Black Stone.

Humans were a big thing here, obviously, especially as it had been started by the descendants of China following the solar flares – a complicated story about some people being against the then-current government representation on the Starship China 7/6, which had finished with some people being simply stranded on an asteroid. Nasty, really. But, that aside, you could see a good chunk of non-earthly people of the Stone Star, as evidenced by the reptilian couple that the Doctor had to hide from after his detector thingie did a thing that it wasn't supposed to do – as usual.

Most of the temporal anomalies, he noted, stayed around the Beggars' Stone. One was closer to him, right on the Snooty Stone, but he knew too well that the Museum of Earth wouldn't let him in with his detector, and the anomaly was right in the middle. There were two others green dots on the screen on the Black Stone, and thirteen on the Beggars' Stone, or on the structures between that asteroid and the nearest. So, obvious choice – no, not the Black Stone; why would you think that? It's not as if the Doctor was particularly reckless, was it?

No, but seriously, he thought as he ducked under a bridge – problematic person in sight, Time Agency vortex manipulator on the wrist, and a mole under the left eye that had somehow started a long spat between frenemies, not the moment to get caught, though that did say he was right about the anomalies – the Doctor knew how to behave.

Even if he usually didn't bother to, because that was often pointless and boring.

He glanced back at the Time Agent, hoping they wouldn't have to cross path again this time. The woman still looked as if she had swallowed a lemon, so that would probably be for the best if she didn't see him – though, for all he knew, they hadn't had their spat yet on her side of the timeline. Better not to chance it, though.

The Doctor decided to put his detector on mute with a flick of his sonic screwdriver, just in case. He'd have to actually pay attention to the readings, as a result, but hey! He could manage that.

...Probably.

About thirty minutes later, the Doctor was starting to sneer at the instrument, as if it was its fault that the anomalies were somehow moving around the Stone Star instead of staying put – which, objectively speaking, probably meant that either the anomalies were people instead of events, however that could happen, or that people were carrying around whatever caused the anomalies.

Just a bit longer, he told himself – unconvincingly, but, points for trying! The closest dot was only a few meters away, if the detector thingie was to be believed. Only a few more steps, and...

Some idiot bumped into him, and the Doctor cursed loudly in Gallifreyan, which earned him more than a few weird looks, as the device's antenna broke. The green dots on the screen flickered, and the detector made a worrying sound of agony.

"Come on!"

He hit the thing against his thigh, which held absolutely no results, except that it turned the sound of agony into something much more high-pitched, before the detector sputtered and died definitely.

The teenage girl – too much make up, but an interesting choice of hair color – who had accidentally ended up screwing the Doctor's plans tried to say something that sounded between apologetic and mildly irritated, but the Time Lord only squinted at her.

"If the Apocalypse happens because I can't find what I was looking for, that's on you!"

The melodramatic statement was followed by the Doctor huffing and walking away immediately.

Okay, the Apocalypse was unlikely to happen right now, right here, just because the girl hadn't been looking where she was going – not that he had been either, but he had an excuse, him! – but the Doctor's luck – or lack thereof – was unlikely too. How else would you describe his tendency to always end up in life-threatening events?

About seven seconds and a quarter later, the Doctor slowed down, and decided to take a sit at the nearest coffee shop. Storming out was something he did very well, but it didn't change the fact that now, he had no idea how to find the temporal anomalies.

The Doctor put down the broken detector on the small table, searching for money before doing anything else. He had left his credit card for the Stone Star – aka anything human in between the thirty-third and thirty-ninth century – in his left pocket before leaving the TARDIS, he knew that, but as always, finding the thing in his transdimensional pockets was another story...

Ah, there. Just behind the modulator and the... What the cricket was that? One of these days, he'd have to check what was in those pockets entirely. And maybe get rid of a few things.

Not the jelly babies, though.

The Doctor changed the credit card from his coat's pocket to his trousers' – not transdimensional – and looked up just in time to see a young woman, caucasian look, unlike most of the employees around the Stone Star, standing politely on the other side of the table, the ghost of a smile on her lips – amused, perhaps? She barely eyed his detector, laying lifelessly on the table, before asking him what he wanted.

"Banana milkshake."

For a moment he forgot what he had been thinking about, watching her walk away, but soon enough he shrugged, and proceeded to put the detector in his right pocket. He didn't particularly want to walk around with it in hand if there was no added benefit.

If he got a few surprised looks as he managed to make the device disappear into a pocket that was clearly not big enough to contain it, he didn't notice.

Not that he usually did. He might, in fact, have made it into an art to ignore the surprised / distrustful / disgusted looks he could get as he did things. Not his fault if people weren't open-minded enough, no matter the time and location – in fact, the Doctor probably got more irritated with the more advanced societies, where people never blinked at anything he did... until he did or said the one thing they were still stuck up about, and then it was pandemonium. Because even the rare times nothing in particular happened, and so no one accused him of anything, he still had his doubts as to whether the people in these societies were truly accepting, or they were just "polite" enough not to mention his "shortcomings".

Thinking that, as he hadn't been that far away from the nearest anomaly, he might perhaps find something even without his temporal detector – oh, so regretted and mourned – the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and started going through the settings.

Setting X203 – yeah, better not to boil anything accidentally, especially not in a coffee shop. 856#2... useless in this case. 5D666 – he wanted to find a temporal anomaly, not to break the timestreams of the whole Stone Star, damnit! HHhH – oh who was he kidding...!

Wait. 12o4, perhaps. If the anomalies were people, pulled out of their time, and most likely without a timeship... They had to have vortex residues on them. At least during the three first weeks following the temporal displacement. Longer than that, and the question was a bit dodgy. But considering that not only the TARDIS, put also a simple temporal detector had been able to pick on the anomalies, it was more than likely that the vortex residues were still active.

The Doctor glanced around the coffee shop, squinted at two danarian kids who were obviously trying to read the superficial thoughts of the waitress – a very rude thing to do, and they should expect hell whenever their mother would be finished dealing with their youngest brother, no doubt – and smirked. Superficial thoughts might only be superficial – also, the only thoughts that could actually be put into words – but it was still a breach of privacy, and definitely not a way to determine someone's intelligence.

A quick s56 setting later, the telepathic kids were staring at each other in horror – redirection of their efforts, onto some more deserving subjects, thanks to a simple telepathic wave amplified with the screwdriver – and the Doctor could concentrate on what he had been trying to do for the last hour, finally.

12o4. If anyone around in the coffee shop was covered in vortex residues, the screwdriver who make them visible to someone time-sensitive like the Doctor, by making the residues resonate. Of course, it would become a problem for the person if he kept it going for more than a few seconds, because it could possibly try to send the person back into their original time, without actually doing it, and well, side effects... Reason why he would have to be very attentive for the ten seconds or so he was allowing himself to use setting 12o4.

Wouldn't want to miss the telltale buzzing of the vortex residues because his attention was caught by something else, like, say, two very rude telepathics kids who had no business glaring at him like that to begin with.

The Time Lord snarled at them, thinking violently of the beginning of a telepathic trial he had been to a few decades prior and hoping they'd caught his meaning, because really, now was not the moment for him to explain to two brats that just because their mom was having trouble with their sick, poor little brother, it didn't mean they could do whatever they wanted.

Besides, they should be grateful that he had caught onto their little game before their telepathic sneaking around got them to see some horrific memories or whatever, that no children should ever have to witness. The Doctor's own mind was too crowded with such sights, and he hardly doubted he was the only one on the Stone Star with that kind of problem – maybe the others hadn't seen as much as he had, maybe they hadn't seen anything as terrible, but in the end, even if it was less of a horror, it was still horrific.

Focusing back on his sonic, the Doctor finally started the scan, and looked around expectantly...

For nothing. No vortex residues on anyone, if some floating around. Damn it. All that for nothing.

He pocketed back the sonic screwdriver, and looked up just in time to see the waitress coming back from the supposed kitchen, his banana milkshake on a tray. That, at least, should brighten him up.

At this point, he almost thought his detector thingie – yeah, well, he never had actually taken the time to name the thing, and at least, that way, he had no problem remembering what this one did; if it went ding when there was stuff, that was all he asked for; which, for a reminder, it wasn't doing at the moment – had had a problem even before the walking girl incident, but that would imply that the TARDIS was also becoming barmy, forcing him to go in places he didn't want to go for no reason at all, and the Doctor had a hard time believing that. Moreover, his screwdriver too couldn't be giving false data. It would be too much, the three devices failing at the same time.

So, no, even if he wasn't yet seeing anything with time-travel residues on it yet, he had to give it time. Something – some things, possibly – was misplaced in time, and it was here, on the Stone Star, and the TARDIS thought he needed to deal with it. He just had to find out what – and why, and how, and a solution, but let's start by the beginning, alright?

As it was, he didn't have to wait much longer to find out what exactly was misplaced in time. In fact, he might have noticed just a tad sooner if he hadn't been busy sulking about his broken detector. Because come on, it was glaringly obvious.

After all, it's not everyday in the thirty-seventh century that a waitress greeted you in twenty-first century French for no apparent reason.

It's even less common for said waitress to come back with your order, singing some traditional breton songs under her breath.


End file.
